Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Frameworks

Many people outside of the industry do not have the slightest idea of when and why you should use frameworks for their site development. I want to give as much information as I can in this post regarding when you should apply them and what some advantages and disadvantages are to using frameworks. Normally, the higher degree of customization you require for the site development, the bigger the chances are that you will use a framework.

Some website developers use free available frameworks, while others prefer their own custom-built internal ones. Moreover, many developers do not use frameworks at all. So what is the deal with all this? Depending whether an individual or a team builds the site, they decide on their own which language to use, which design pattern to apply, how to write the code itself, and many other aspects worth considering. Depending on all those factors, the developers make decisions on whether they need to use framework or not. Here are some advantages and disadvantages to the framework approach.

Advantages

The most popular frameworks that you can easily find online are open-source, which means they are free to use. Using these free frameworks, you can build a website for any purpose, even commercial, without being afraid of bridging licensing restrictions.

If the framework is written using a popular language and there are many developers who downloaded it to use in their website building, this framework will normally have good support and documentation. Obviously, you can expect faster support if you pay for it, but many frameworks out there work just fine without any investment from your side.

Probably the reason why frameworks were created in the first place is their efficiency. Many different applications have the same underlying code, and frameworks reduce the need to write the code all over again. As an example, consider commenting systems or user-authentication systems. These will take you much more of your time if you write the code from scratch.

With the frameworks that are popular and have been used by many developers, there is a big chance that all security issues would have been addressed and the bugs fixed. Whenever there is a new security issue, it also can be fixed very quickly. This is an advantage as well as a downside.

Disadvantages

Unfortunately, with one framework, it is impossible to achieve everything. There are some restrictions applied to every framework that you can find. You can check how other developers are using it by chatting with them on forums and in communities.

Performance issues are relevant today, when it comes to frameworks. The performance slows down when the framework is using JavaScript. It might not be so visible on the computer, but it will be very noticeable for mobile users.

A lot of framework’s features that are supposed to be reducing your time on building website were custom built. That means that if you want to use your knowledge of a certain language when learning how to use a framework, you might notice the differences between how the framework is written and the language itself.

CMS require less experience and expertise than most of the frameworks, which means if you are hiring someone to do the job for you, the developer specializing in frameworks will be more difficult to find and more costly to hire.

Now when you know the advantages and disadvantages of frameworks, you can decide for yourself whether you want to use them or not.

I used to turn on my desktop, open a Notepad file and type in pages of HTM markup, CSS and JavaScript instructions to be able to design absolutely gorgeous and sophisticated web pages. However, over the years of my research on how I can simplify my life and not go through this process over and over again, I found something..